GodMen and the feminist Jesus

Re “Manliness is next to godliness,” Column One, Dec. 7

These Christians remind me that though I love Jesus, some of his followers frighten me. What the world does not need is more machismo. I think we’ve had enough of testosterone-laden men who are afraid to touch other men, afraid to cry, afraid to support gay men and women, but too often unafraid to be aggressive and violent. The world needs more people who are sensitive to injustice, to the cries of another, to damage done to the Earth. However, sensitivity should not be confused with timidity and passivity. Sensitive people feel, but they also act. GodMen and the other organizations like it seem to be another attempt to promote patriarchal religion with its dominance, misogyny and homophobia.

JOSEPH GIUS

Los Angeles

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We’ve had GodMen in history before. Anyone recall them? They were called “Crusaders.” They were called “Knights Templar.” They were called “the Holy Inquisition.”

Anyone versed in history can tell you what happens when Christian men stop turning the other cheek. Just follow the rivers of blood to see where it led in the past.

JAMES PENROSE

Long Beach

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Of course men are turned off by the feminist Christ that runs totally counter to the historical Jesus. Christ was allied with the Zealots -- we would call them fundamentalistic terrorists today -- to overthrow Roman rule. This led to his execution as a rebel.

Paul of Tarsus substituted for the real Jesus his own imaginary divine Jesus, and the gospel writers substituted a pacifist Jesus in order to get the Romans off their backs. The pacifist and feminist Jesus is the result. All this is clear from biblical scholarship.

NORMAN RAVITCH

History Professor Emeritus

UC Riverside